Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called for a “sustainable ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war amid concerns that “too many civilian lives” have been lost.
Speaking at an airbase in Scotland, Sunak said: “Nobody wants to see this conflict go on a day longer than it has to.
“And that’s why we’ve been consistent – and I made this point in Parliament last week – in calling for a sustainable ceasefire, whereby hostages are released, rockets stopped being fired into Israel by Hamas and we continue to get more aid in.”
Sunak was among the world leaders who offered strong support to Israel and Netanyahu after the Hamas terror attacks on October 7, when gunmen killed over 1,200 people, most of them civilians.
Speaking at an airbase in Scotland, Mr Sunak said: 'Nobody wants to see this conflict go on a day longer than it has to'
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Britain has provided extensive humanitarian support to Gaza and sent RAF spy planes over the Hamas-run coastal strip.
The Prime Minister’s call for a ceasefire came in response to comments made by former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who said last night that Israel was conducting a “killing rage” in Gaza.
Writing in the Telegraph, Wallace said that some Israeli politicians were behaving like a “bull in a China shop” and that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “losing sight of the long term”.
He warned that a “disproportionate response” in Gaza would radicalise Muslims around the world and its tactics in the coastal enclave would “fuel the conflict for another 50 years”.
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The Prime Minister’s call for a ceasefire came in response to comments made by former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace
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The former soldier said that Israelis could learn from how Britain fought in Northern Ireland.
The influential Tory said: “Northern Ireland internment taught us that a disproportionate response by the state can serve as a terrorist organisation’s best recruiting sergeant.”
He added: “For many, watching the events in Gaza unfold each day, makes us more and more uncomfortable.”
Wallace’s comments come after Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron called for a “sustainable ceasefire” with his German counterpart.
Sunak was among the world leaders who offered strong support to Israel
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The French foreign minister also called for an “immediate and durable truce” over the weekend.
But Richard Kemp, a former senior British army officer, told GB News that Wallace was “totally wrong”.
Colonel Kemp said: “He says Hamas must be destroyed but Israel is doing it in the wrong way. He doesn’t say how Israel should do it better. Nor does anyone else.
“This is no indiscriminate killing spree as he suggests.
“Attacks are carefully targeted against Hamas but when the terrorists hide behind human shields it is impossible to get to them without the tragic deaths of civilians unfortunately.”
Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, continued: “The IDF does only have two options: leave Hamas intact to repeat the October 7 massacre as they have promised to do or eliminate them and unfortunately kill some innocent civilians.”
Former Royal Navy Admiral Chris Parry told GB News: “Bad things happen not out of design but operational friction.”
He added “Israel will do what it has to do” regardless of Western opinion and that the “West needs to wake up to the clear and present threat from Iran”.
Keir Starmer has backed calls for a “sustainable ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war.
The Labour leader said during a visit to a hospital in Leeds: “A sustainable ceasefire is clearly, clearly what is needed.”
He said: “We need to get to a sustainable ceasefire as quickly as possible. And, I think the route to that is to get back to where we were just two weeks ago, where hostilities ceased, there’s an opening that allows the remaining hostages to be freed, which they must be straight away – allows humanitarian aid to get in – desperately needed – but, also, is a foot-in-the-door to a process, it will have to be a political process, to a two-stage solution which, in the end, is the only way that this is going to be resolved.”
Sir Keir said a “sustainable ceasefire is what everybody should be arguing for”.